


si vis pacem, para bellum

by dropofrum (95echelon)



Series: dropofrum sampler [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Slow Burn, adorable baby rickon is adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-17 08:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/95echelon/pseuds/dropofrum
Summary: "Your place is here," she says, a hand over his heart, his pulse racing beneath her fingertips. "With me."The Starks are orphaned before their time. They survive anyway.A not-love story in seven parts.





	1. Chapter 1

#### PROLOGUE 

 

 

 

 

_"Liar," Sansa chides gently, placing a hand over his heart, and feeling his pulse stutter and race beneath her fingertips. "Your place is here."  
_

_"In Winterfell?" he asks, his voice softer than a whisper, breath puffing in clouds of white._

_"In Winterfell," she agrees, and realizes how close together they've come in these past minutes. She can see his eyes, the rim of rich, dark blue at the edges of his irises, like deep, still water. "Here. With me."_

* * *

 

 

 

> _“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”_
> 
> _ - NEIL GAIMAN, 'CORALINE' _
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Then she turned to me, let me see how angry she was, and that the anger was for me._
> 
> _She had been talking to herself, so what she said was a fragment of a much larger conversation. "You were just babies then!" she said._  
>  _"What?" I said._  
>  _"You were just babies in the war - like the ones upstairs!"_  
>  _I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood._  
>  _"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation._  
>  _"I- I don't know," I said._
> 
> _"Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs."_
> 
> _So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise. "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne."_
> 
> _"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade."_
> 
> _She was my friend after that._
> 
> _\- KURT VONNEGUT, 'SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, or THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE'_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  _When I was younger_  
>  _I told my mother_  
>  _I said, "One day, I'm gonna make you proud."_
> 
>  _Now that I'm older_  
>  _It's so much harder_  
>  _To say those words out loud._
> 
> _\- LIZ LAWRENCE, 'WHEN I WAS YOUNGER'_

 

* * *

 

_Robb Stark was sixteen, when he rode for war._

_I want you to remember that - he was sixteen when they murdered his father, when he called for his bannermen, when he held the North, took the Riverlands, and the Westerlands, three kingdoms of seven. He was sixteen when he loved a woman, and won every battle, and lost the war. He was sixteen, and this is the price he paid for falling in love - the lives of his mother, his wife, his unborn child._

_Robb Stark was sixteen, when they killed his father._

_Sansa was twelve._

_Forgive them, won't you?_

_And if you can't, that's alright. They were faithless children; they broke their word, they trusted strangers over mothers and sisters. They were young, and the price was paid, again and again, and each time in blood. But it's alright, if you can't forgive them._

_We're turning back the hands of time._

* * *

_Here's an argument, hashed over a hundred times - that the Lord and Lady Stark were too soft, with their children. Too kind, too warm; they were protected too well from the cruelties of the world. That Sansa never knew knights and beautiful princes could be evil too, that Robb never learnt the value of clever politics, that Jon Snow ought to have been told this - the Wall is not held by honorable men, my son, the Wall is a place for reavers and rapers and robbers all._

 

 

 

 

_Here's another argument - Lord Stark made his seven-year-old boy watch a deserter's beheading, made him look in the eyes of death without flinching._

_So maybe the truth lies somewhere in between those two things._

 

* * *

 

 

 

_A change, a thread pulled at the loom of fate. What if._

 

* * *

 

#### ONE.

* * *

 

 

 

 

Lady Stark dies giving birth to Rickon.

Lord Stark is murdered by Jorah Mormont, two years later, before the knight flees to Essos, beyond their reach, beyond their swords.

 

There. 

 

Now they know cruelty, these brave, bright-eyed children who have never, _never_ deserved the horrors the world has so eagerly heaped upon them. 

But it isn't enough, is it? It's never enough.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Sansa doesn't cry when Mother dies.

Arya does; Arya shoves her brother and sister away, nearly trips over baby Bran, barrelling away through hushed corridors, still ringing with Mother's screams, through doors and courtyards, deep, deep into the stillness of the godswood. She has Robb's old bow tightly clenched in her sweat-damp hand, a quiver stuffed with eagle-fletched arrows, and she looses them all in the godswood, sinking them inch-deep into the pale wood of the heart tree, her feral battlecries raging from her throat.

Arya's grief is louder than thunder, than the baying of wolves, than the thump of your heart. Arya's grief is naked, blood-red, vicious.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

"Lady Stark," someone is saying. "My lady? Please, you have to come downstairs. Your Lord father requires your presence."

Sansa flinches when a heavy hand comes to rest on her shoulder, and she turns up to see Maester Luwin's kindly, lined face. " _Please_ , Lady Stark."

_Lady Stark._

"Don't _**call**_ me that," she hisses, rising from her seat, and stamping her foot. "I'm _**not**_ \- _Don't_ -"

She claps her hands over her mouth, a whimper escaping, as her shoulder shake violently. Her eyes dart to the cot where Bran and Rickon sleep, their little chests rising and falling in tandem.

If she screams, if she weeps... they will wake.

And Mama isn't here to put them back to sleep. So Sansa locks the grief deep inside her chest, lets it cut her heart to ribbon, lets it sear away her pound of flesh so it wont take from her baby brothers as well. Her jaw clamps closed, and she sinks back to her seat, her neck bowed, her shoulders hunched in defeat.

"My name is Sansa," she declares quietly, all of eight years old. "I will answer to Lady Sansa. Tell the rest of them."

The maester bows in acquiescence, and Sansa doesn't look up at him, and so she misses the tears he quickly blinks away.

"Leave us," she commands, and there is a dignity there that seems too heavy for her little voice. Maester Luwin bows once more, because it seems _right_ , she seems _worthy_. The Starks have never stood on formality, not even the Lady Stark before her, for all her southron, riverlander blood, but Luwin backs away to the door the way one might with a queen, and leaves the girl to her vigil.

Arya's screams don't break the silence here.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Lady Lysa comes North for her sister's funeral, and there is a huge, screaming row between her and Maege Mormont about the proper way to honor a trout amongst wolves. Father's eyes are cold and grey, and when Jon Arryn attempts to share a commiserating glance - _'Women, eh?'_ \- Ned Stark's gaze is far away. 

Eventually, it is Robb who steps in.

"My mother was a Tully, before she was a Stark, my lady," he interrupts, apologetic, twelve years old and nervous and sad. His face is splotchy - hormones playing havoc with his skin - and his voice is still a little reedy. When he takes Lady Lysa's bony, long-fingered hand, his hand is too large for the rest of him.

Robb Stark has a great deal of growing up ahead of him.

"I'm sorry," he says, "that you lost your sister," even though he's lost his Mother, and sometimes he finds himself drifting to her solar in the evenings before realizing it'll be empty, it'll always be empty, and then he has to fight very, very hard not to cry.

(He doesn't always manage the not-crying; when he doesn't, he goes up to the nursery instead, where Sansa's been taking her meals and lessons and prayers for the past three days. Her eyes are always red, Robb notes with a quiet, uncertain sort of desperation, when he comes in, but she smiles a weak, tremulous smile, and tells him how baby Rickon's doing instead of talking about anything truly important, and sometimes they curl up on the spare divan, and pretend they're going to be okay. Sometimes, it helps.)

"But she is a Stark. _Was_. She _was_ a Stark. Her place is in Winterfell. Her place is here."

And that's the end of it.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

When Mother's funeral is done, her bones interred in the crypts, Father hires a stonemason.

He calls them all to her solar, the stonemason's artist perched gingerly on a precarious, three-legged stool, parchment tacked onto wood in his hand, a nub of dark charcoal poised over the clean sheet to take her sketch, ready to take their description for the final statue.

They pile into the room, around the settee by the fire, Arya tucked into Father's side, Robb lounging on the floor by his feet, long legs outstretched, Bran dozing on his thigh. Sansa's the last to arrive, baby Rickon nestled on her hip, thumb permanently stuck in his mouth, a wet patch of drool spreading slowly on her shoulder.

Lord Stark double-takes a little when she enters, eyes widening, and Sansa fights an embarrassed blush. She knows she's a mess, but she just...

"Hello, Sansa," he says very quietly, and there's something awfully warm about his voice. Her heart slip-slides a little in her chest, and Papa gestures for Rickon. Sansa's painfully careful when she passes the babe. He's only just fallen asleep, and Sansa's mortally terrified of him waking up again. "Have you been taking care of your brother?"  
Sansa nods, budging Arya over, so she can squirm into the space between her little sister and the armrest.

"You look tired, little one," Lord Stark rumbles.  
She shrugs in response. "I'm okay," she defers, before getting to the heart of the matter that's kept her worried and fidgety all evening. "Will Mama's statue be smiling?"

Robb looks up at Papa. "Aunt Lyanna's statue smiles," he points out.  
"Yes," Sansa agrees, "but _Grandmother's_ doesn't." She turns back to Papa. "I want her statue to smile. She should be happy, when Rickon sees her. He should- He should know how happy she was."

Ned reminds himself to breathe. He swallows, tucks Rickon's heavy head a little more securely to his chest. "Aye," he agrees, his voice hoarse to his own ears. "He should."

Arya's hand slips into Sansa's under the folds of their gowns, small and a little sweaty. She squeezes, quickly, before letting go again. Sansa tries not to cry, and absently rubs a fist against her chest.

It hurts. It just _hurts_. She's never felt so tired in her life.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

"You're supposed to be studying!" Sansa insisted, barely refraining from stamping her foot. Only little girls did that, and Sansa was nine years old now. 

"Am _not!"_ Arya retorted. " _You_ don't get to tell _me_ what to do!"

"Yes, I do!" Sansa nearly shouted back. "You're supposed to listen to what I say - I'm older and-"

" _You're_ not my mother!" Arya hissed, red in the face. "So you just- You _**stop**_ trying to- I bet," Arya said, lowly, eyes in narrow slits, "I just bet you're so happy, that's she gone, aren't you? Now you get to be _**Lady**_ of Winterf-"

Sansa slapped her, so hard Arya stumbled to side, one hand cupping a rapidly reddening cheek, eyes wide with shock and hurt. 

"You-" Sansa spluttered furiously. "How da-"

"I **_hate_** you!" Arya screamed. 

_"I hate you too!"_ Sansa shrieked, hot tears sliding down her face, as Arya drew back, turned and ran away. 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

"I thought I might find you here."

Arya turns to see Jon, sat on a fallen trunk, knees splayed wide and comfortable, looking perfectly calm in the wake of her destruction. She scowls, miserably, and stamps her feet to get her blood moving. She forgot her cloak, and it's _cold._

"Did Sansa send you?" Arya demands.

"No," he replies easily. "I just followed the screams."

Arya growls under her breath, flinging a stone at him. Jon ducks expertly, and chuckles. "Brat," he mutters fondly, and Arya feels her gut loosen a little. "Alright," he says, "what did she do?"

"She's being a bitch again," Arya reports, picking her way to Jon slowly.

Jon hums at that, and Arya smiles a secret little smile. He never bothers correcting her manners when Sansa isn't around. It's her favourite thing about him. He waits, patiently, for Arya to go on, his eyes bright and attentive, and she felts the anger ebb away in slow, warm degrees.

"She keeps telling me what to do," Arya says morosely, settling onto the log beside him. "Go to your lessons, Arya, go say your prayers, Arya, go practice your stitches, Arya, go wipe my arse, Ar-"

Jon elbows her in the side, and Arya shuts up, only after elbowing him back. _Hard_.

"I remember Lady Stark telling you what to do too," Jon points out, after they've been siting in silence for a while. "You didn't mind much, then."

" _She's_ not my mother!" Arya snaps. But maybe he doesn't get it.  _He_ didn't lose  _his_ mother, she thinks uncharitably, and then feels horribly, painfully guilty about even  _thinking_ sucha thing.

"No, little sister," Jon says very, very gently. He doesn't try to pull her close, and when she squeezes her eyes closed, and feels a tear trickle down her nose, Jon pretends not to notice. Arya feels a wave of gratitude rush through her, and wonders if Papa will _finally_ name Jon a Stark now. She hopes he will. _Gods,_ she hopes he will. "Sansa is not your mother. But she _is_ Lady Stark. And she misses her mother too."

* * *

 

Robb and Sansa had the same first word - _Ma_.  
Jon didn't bother with words for the longest time - when he finally began to speak, he started off with full sentences. Jon was a bizarre child.

 

Arya's first word was ' _No_.' (Her second word was ' _Jon_.')  
Bran's first word was ' _Up!_ '

 

Rickon's first word is ' _San_.'

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Years later, Sansa would stand in the crypts of Winterfell, Arya beside her, and ask, "Is that really what he looked like?"_

_"Yes," Arya would say._

_'I don't know,' she would think, without saying it out, shame welling dark and sulfurous in her heart. 'Maybe. Maybe he did.'_

_She carried more memories of a statue in this gloom than of her father by then; her living father, Arya remembered in fragments - grey eyes, a soft kiss upon her forehead before she fell asleep, a gentle smile. The sensation of being carried on his shoulders, the secure clasp of his battle-scarred hands around her ankles._

_But they were impressions more than memories, fleeting, unclear, like glimpsing the sky from its reflection in a turbulent ocean._

_She did not want to admit the truth to her sister - Arya had long forgotten the sound of her mother's laughter._

_She had long forgotten her father's face._

* * *

 

 

_But it did look like Lord Stark, the statue in Winterfell._

_The stonemason Robb had hired-_

_not Robb, but Jon; Jon and Sansa, his hand caught in hers, their hearts feeling like they had been ripped from their chests-_

_Robb had gone missing, three nights ago, after the raven bearing news of Lord Stark's death came from Bear Island, and Theon had been the one who brought him back, long nights later, a hunted look in both their eyes-_

_The stonemason Jon and Sansa had hired had been a Wintertown man, and it had taken him three tries to finish Lord Stark's statue, his trembling hands betraying him, his chisel slipping on the unyielding rock, his eyes closing against this terrible task. It had been barely a moon's turn since his son had been born, since he had named his firstborn Eddard, in hopes that the boy would  
take after his namesake; that he would grow to be brave and honourable and yes, cautious, too, and kind._

_Now he simply hoped his boy outlived Ned Stark._

* * *

 

 

 

> _"You hurt. It's okay. I hurt too. Hold my hand."_
> 
> _\- NEIL GAIMAN, 'THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS'_
> 
> _"It took me a long time to understand Daddy was never coming back. I waited for him for months, sitting at the front window of our house in Katy, just west of Houston. Some days I stood at the end of the driveway to watch every car that passed. No matter how often Mama told me to quit looking for him, I couldn't give up._
> 
> _I guess I thought the strength of my wanting would be enough to make him appear."_
> 
> _\- LISA KLEYPAS, 'MY NAME IS LIBERTY'_
> 
> _If you want, I could tell the truth_  
>  _That this life takes its toll on you_  
>  _I spend nights stitching up_  
>  _The loose threads of my soul_
> 
> _In the mornings,_  
>  _I'm bulletproof._
> 
> _\- NOAH KAHAN, 'YOUNG BLOOD'_

 

* * *

 

_I wish sometimes, that we would give them a little room to breathe, to break down, to weep. Give our brothers and fathers, our sons and our lovers a place where they did not have to be strong. I wish we could tell them it was okay, it was alright, that we could carry the world too._

_We could do this thing together, my friend, my father, my brother, my son; this business of keeping all our pieces whole, we could do it together._

_We could fight dragons together, we could scale mountains. We could sail to the ends of the earth, and we could build ourselves a home._

_Hold on. Won't you?_

* * *

####  TWO. 

* * *

 

"NO!" Bran screamed, tears streaming down his red little face, nearly as dark as his hair. "NONONONO-" He stomped his foot, the way Arya was wont to do when she didn't get her way, and dashed out of Sansa's solar, maids leaping to get out of his way.

Sansa sighed, slumping down until her forehead was pressed against the cool beechwood of her mother's desk.

 _Her_ desk.

"Hey," a new voice murmured from beside her and Sansa startled up, hand flying to her throat, pulse racing as she saw- _oh_.

"Jon," she gasped, breathless. "You _scared_ me!"  
"Apologies, my lady," Jon replied, gently. "I didn't mean to. Is everything alright?"  
"How many _times_ \- Sansa, Jon," she muttered. "You _must_ call me Sansa. How many times am I going to have to tell you?"  
"At least once more, my lady," he parried, with a quiet smile. "Is Bran being a bother?"  
"No," she sighed. "No, he's just... Oh, he's scared, Jon, the poor baby."  
Jon dragged a spare chair beside hers, and settled down, taking her hands in his own, thumbs running slowly through the tendons and knuckles, gently pushing and rubbing circles until it felt like he was pouring warm honey through his fingertips right into her veins.

"What is he scared of?" Jon asked.  
"He's-" She took a deep, tired breath, and exhaled. "I have to visit Riverrun. Uncle Edmure says Grandfather doesn't have much time left, and Aunt Lysa's pregnant again, so she can't make the journey from the capital. And I think Bran's afraid that if I leave, I shan't return. He doesn't understand what happened to Mama, and he..."

"He thinks of you as his mother now," Jon finished, solemnly.  
"Yes," she choked out, lips pressed together to hold back a sob. "Oh, Jon, what am I going to do?"  
"Simple," he murmured, his voice a quiet rumble, for all that he was just barely ten-and-four. "Take him with you."  
"No, no, he'll be afraid to leave home; he's too young to travel so f-"  
"My lady," Jon interrupted gently, leaning forward and turning her face up to his with a nudge under her chin. "He'll have you with him. There's nowhere in the world he won't feel safe, if he's with you."

"Oh, Jon..." Sansa smiled tremulously at him, turning up her palms and tangling their fingers together in her lap. "You're sweet, do you know that?"

Jon blushed at that, chuckling awkwardly and sitting back in his seat; Sansa realized only then how close together they'd moved, and turned faintly pink, primly drawing her hands back and clasping them together.

"Don't go 'round telling anyone, my lady," Jon replied, dark eyes twinkling in the faint morning light, hazy and silvery, and her blood turned warm, heavy, like she'd drunk a little too much mead at supper. "I have a reputation to maintain."

* * *

 

 

And so, Sansa's at Riverrun, when the news about Papa comes.

Grandfather Hoster hasn't been keeping well, and there's some worry about the succession, even though Uncle Edmure's been doing a fairly decent job of holding the Riverlands together. The smallfolk prefer the Blackfish, they _all_ prefer Granduncle Brynden, Sansa's seen it, in the mere sennight she's spent in her mother's home.

 _He should marry,_ Sansa thinks, and wonders how to tell Uncle Edmure about it, in a way that he won't ignore because it comes from the mouth of a girl who's just turned ten-and-two. Edmure should marry, a Whent or even a Frey, some nice Riverlands girl the smallfolk will like, and have a few babies. It'll help settle things for now.

But then a raven comes from Winterfell, a snarling direwolf stamped into the seal in black wax, and Sansa notes Jon's hand, before she reads the words, the long, thin letters, the elongated g's, the graceful l's. He has a strangely wonderful hand, her Jon, she thinks, and then startles at the thought.

' _Her_ ' Jon? Where... Wherever had _that_ come from?

She blushes then, stepping out of the maester's chambers, before she starts reading. And then she does read, and the words blur together - _accused of selling slaves,_ and _Lady Mormont has set off to hunt the fucker down, all the way to Essos if she has to,_ and _Robb's gone missing,_ and _please, Sansa._

_Please come home._

She doesn't know when she stops in her tracks, knees wobbling, can't tell when she slumps against the wall, reading the words over and over, a great, soundless roar filling up her ears. She doesn't know when she starts crying, except that the world goes hazy around her, salt trickling past her lips. She _whimpers_ , a weak, horrible mewl, like a little thing about to die, and she clamps her hand over her mouth, locking it away, dark wisps of hair escaping her careful, intricate coiffure.

 _'No,'_ she's saying, begging, to gods who don't give a damn, hands clenching in her skirts, crumpling the missive and letting it drop to the ground, crashing to the floor, knees drawing up to her chest.

Trying to make herself as little as possible.

Trying to make it not-  
**_Not._**

* * *

 

They discover the stag on their way back. Dead, its entrails spilled on the road, its eyes glassy and unseeing.

She discovers six orphaned pups, Rickon nestled on her hip, Bran trailing her skirts warily, when her escorts, led by Ser Rodrick, venture deeper into the forest. They're  nestled into the warmth of their mother's corpse, and Bran scrambles to his knees, picking up one of the litter with the careless enthusiasm of an excitable boy.

"What _is_ that beast?" she asks of Ser Rodrick. She may only be ten-and-two, but she's been shooting up like a beanpole these past few months, and she is glad to be able to look him directly in the eye.

"A direwolf, Lady Stark."

She frowns, letting Rickon down and watching him toddle up to his brother, where Bran's nuzzling a pup, before fully turning back to Rodrick. "That can't be right. There's no direwolves this far south of the wall."

Rodrick shrugs. "Now there are five." His jaw hardens, and his hand tightens around the hilt of his sword. "We should kill them, my lady. It isn't right for them to be here. They do not... belong."

"No," Sansa replies quietly. "They are the sigil of my house, Ser Rodrick. We cannot _kill_ them."

"But who will take care of them?" Bran pipes up, worriedly. " _Their_ mother's dead too."

But he sees the decision form on her face, and he's smiling before she speaks. "We shall," she says brusquely. "Would you like that?"  
He nods, eyes wide and red-rimmed, clutching a wriggling pup to his chest, and Sansa exhales, heart tripping in her chest, unsteady. "There's five, then. One for Robb, Jon, Arya, you and Rickon."  
Bran chews the inside of his mouth, eyes wide and sad. "What about you? Don't you want a pup too?"  
Sansa smiled, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and dropping a kiss upon his brow. "Don't worry, little one. I shall manage without just fine."  
She looked back up at the direwolf, and her heart skipped a beat, blood draining away to leave her deathly pale. "Bran..." she asked slowly. "Where's Rickon?"

"Rickon? He's just right- Oh," Bran said, turning around to see an empty patch of grass and a missing baby.

Sansa straightened, pale, shaky, her stomach churning with fear. "He's little. He can't have gone fa-"

  
"San!" comes a high-pitched squeal, and Sansa nearly falls over in her haste to run to sound, the rapid thunks of Ser Roderick's boots crashing against the ground as he follows her through the underbrush. Her skirts snag and rip in the brambles, thorns cutting against her calves and it only takes her seconds to reach the slope down to a rushing winter creek, full of snowmelt and crackling ice where Rickon is kneeling, his breaches soaked to the thigh with icy water.

But his cheeks are red and his blue eyes bright, and there's a restless white pup cradled gently in his arms, and it is relief that brings Sansa crashing to her knees in front of him, dragging him into her arms with a broken sob, the little wolf squirming and yipping between them.

A little hysterically, as she tucks their warm, little bodies close to her chest, Sansa bursts into uneven laughter, kneeling on the forest floor while her guard watches her uneasily.

Orphaned direwolf pups, for orphaned direwolf children.

_How splendidly fucking symmetrical._

* * *

 

"You should go," Robb says to Theon, the day before Lord Stark's burial. "Father's dead, you're not his ward anymore, and I don't- Lord Karstark's got a bad look in his eye, Jon's saying, so you should-"

"You're kicking me out?" Theon asks, wide-eyed, looking wounded.

"I'm not- No!" Robb protests hurriedly. "No, I'm just-" He exhales sharply, hands crossing defensively over his chest, as he kicks at the ground, never meeting Theon's eyes. "I don't know how else to make sure... Make sure someone else doesn't, you know. Take you hostage. Again." He says this very softly, as if he's afraid of being overheard.

It's a legitimate concern. Winterfell is teeming with busybodies and gossips - half of Westeros has descended on them for Lord Stark's final rites - even the Small Council is sending a representative, the man they all called Littlefinger, who had come for Mother's funeral as well, and named himself a childhood friend. Who had remarked on how closely Sansa resembled her dear, departed mother, watching her with dark, almost hungry eyes. Who had come again, to Winterfell, in all black, murmuring all the correct words - and sometimes Robb wants to set the whole bloody town on fire, just so they'd leave, let Sansa cry, let Arya mourn, let the dark, dead look work its away out of Jon's eyes.

He can't- He _can't_ think about it, not now, or he'll- _He can't-_

"Please, Theon, come on," Robb mutters. "Get your pale arse out of this place, before someone gets ideas, alright? I don't want to see you here tomorrow."

Theon exhales. "Aye, fine. This is it, then?"

"Yes."

"Farewell, then, Stark," Theon says, squaring his shoulders, lifting up his chin, an odd sort of formality to his words.

"And you, Greyjoy."

Robb looks at him, at Theon's reddened eyes, the grey pallor to his skin, like he hasn't been sleeping, and remembers - in every way that mattered, Eddard Stark had been Theon's father too. And between one breath and the next, they crash into an embrace, fierce and desperate. When they part, long minutes later, they look away, and give each other time to pretend they haven't been crying.

Theon finally looks up, a miserable sort of grin on his dumb, familiar face.

Robb thinks he almost smiles back.

But maybe not. It's hard to tell, these days.

* * *

 

"I don't want him to die. I want him to _hurt_. To _bleed_."  
  
Jon's hand stills on her back, and Sansa nestles closer to him, eyes tightly shut, her cheek against the slick, warm leather of his vest. She has lost track of how long they have sat here, in the dark, in Lord Stark's chambers, Jon's back against the bedpost, one foot balanced on the ground, and Sansa tucked against his chest.

The stone absorbs the noise of the keep outside, the frantic preparations for the funeral; here, cocooned in darkness and quiet, they do not have to be anyone but themselves.

"I dream of it, every night," she confesses, her voice cold and hard, even as her hand spasms, clenched into a fist over his heart. "Every night, in my dreams, I kill him again and _again and-"_

She chokes off with a sob.

His grip around her tightens, turns crushing, so close together they can barely breathe, and Sansa, awash in a tide of heartsick misery, is tethered to the earth only by him, the scent of him, like pine and leather and smoke, and something electric, like blood in her teeth, holding her, pinning her down.

"I met him, once," Jon says, his voice hoarse, rasping, as if he's been screaming for hours. "Jorah Mormont. _Knight_ of the Realm." He spits the title like a curse.

"I thought he was... kind."

Sansa shudders, and does not ask the question.

_Why._  
_whywhywhy-_

And then the door crashes open, and their silence is shattered, Robb bursting into the room, Arya hot on his heels, as he gasps, "Seven hells, San, there you two are!"

Sansa looks up blearily, blinking through swollen eyes, heart still racing, hummingbird-quick.

"Robb?" she asks. "What is it?"

"Raven," he spits, "from Lord Cerwyn. They've just had visitors. Apparently, it isn't Petyr Baelish the capital's sending."

" _Good_ ," Jon hisses, eyes narrowed, his back hunching protectively around her, and Sansa's hand tightens reflexively against his chest.

Robb laughs hollowly, despair edging his voice like a blade. "Yes, it's fine thing, brother mine. Our visitor, instead, is to be the _King_."

Silence falls again, as Robb and Arya enter the room fully, letting the door close behind them with a final _thud_. The light dims once more, as Robb continues, "The King and the Queen, and all the bloody royal entourage. We have been _requested_ ," he snarls into the defeating quiet, scathingly, "to _delay_ the funeral.

"They arrive in eight days."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you think the reason I chose this title is for literally any high-flying reason I just want to clear it up: no? I don't know any Latin, outside of like, contract law? I wrote the first chapter the same day they released the Star Trek: Discovery episode titles and this was one of them and I am 100% Trekkie trash (but also! The Last Jedi! I have been screaming for MONTHS.), so that's how that happened. 
> 
> come fangirl with me @dropofrum. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Hit kudos if you liked it!


End file.
